Change Agent: Some of you may know this about me, some may not. Despite having spent the last 15 years as a PR & communications professional, my college degree is in theatre. I have never in my life taken a marketing class, or a journalism class, or a business class. Yet, by most measures, I’m enjoying a successful career in business. ”So what?” you ask… read on.
24 comments:
This article raises some really good points, and I think that there are even more things that could be added to this list. One of the best arguments in this article is that the theater is often the only program on campus that is selling something to the public. This fact changes the requirements for the finished product towards which the students work. Basically the fact that theater programs acknowledge how they prepare their students for a specific profession, leaves the students thinking about professionalism. Freshman year alone in the school of drama teaches basic skills which prepare its students in ways which other programs simply do not even consider offering.
This was great, going into to theater a lot of my family and teachers of the past had said it was a silly idea go for something more stable like business. Now I can show them this article and tell them I am basically doing business but with more skills. Theatre is so diverse, it produces well rounded people who can succeed in most everything they do. The skills you gain in theatre school, not the building or the acting skills, but the ones that teach you to work well with others and advertise a show get you far in life.
I completely agree with this article. Like Olivia, this is the kind of thinking that I tell my family about when they wonder about how reasonable my career choice really is. I think the flexibility and team player points are really big ones. So much of what we do in our classes here is about emphasizing communication and developing our ability to function as a member of a group. Theater encompasses so many different disciplines, from acting to design, from production to the box office, that we all have to be aware of what everyone else does. That connection means that we all know a bit about just everything, which can come in handy in many situations outside of the theater.
A common occurrence for me, as is many of the people of Purnell is the reaction when you mention you are a theatre major. Inevitably, you get one of three responses. First, there are those who are genuinely intrigued. Next, there are those who roll their eyes and politely change the topic, yet their thought bubbles are unmistakable. Finally, there are those who “knew a theatre major once, but now they are working at Wal-Mart and living with their parents.” This article verbalized a sentiment I have been having for a while, and that is a theatre degree is of equal if not greater caliber than every other degree. In many other degrees, there is a formula, a sense of security and accomplishment. Yet in theatre, from the very beginning you are told that there are no sure things. Instead, a student of the theatre must cultivate their own discipline, resilience, and dedication. One must understand both how to lead and work as a team, when to hold fast and when to compromise. One must become educated in a verisimilitude of topics, and have an avid thirst for knowledge and a genuine desire to understand. Truth be told, in an economy that is more and more uncertain, these qualities dare I say better prepare us to enter the workplace. More important, these qualities are adaptable to any field rather than technical expertise. It is not a failure to not find oneself not in theatre. It is a failure to allow these superior qualities to go to waste.
It's nice to know that if my career goals or even my entire career plan doesn't work out, I still have a chance outside of the theatre/entertainment industry, not that I was worried about anything like that actually happening. I have always said that the most valuable things I learned in high school weren't from any english or math class but from doing stage crew. The problem solving and critical thinking skills I developed there have already been so helpful in my short time out in the "real world" and those skills will only get stronger during the next 4 years. The skills we learn here are so valuable in so many different fields that it really does make this degree really versatile and valuable, even outside of theatre.
I have always wanted to go into teaching, but the world what it is, Its always nice to have backup options. My aunt was an art major in college and now she manages a hedge fund. There are lots of people saying that more and more businesses are looking to hire art majors over business majors. As much as I want to go into something more artistic, if it came down to either not having a job or working for a huge corporation making a nice living, I think I would prefer the latter.
The training for a theatre degree requires a certain amount of real-life hands on project work. This project work teaches collaboration, communication, leadership, planning, budgeting, and a host of other skills. While the business majors are learning management theory in a classroom, we're learning it by actually managing people, space, time, and money.
While the points presented in this article are a good rebuttal for people attacking your choice of major, I prefer not to use it. As egotistical as it sounds, I believe I have the skills and mindset to succeed in the audio business.
This was such a GREAT article! Having thought many hours about whether or not I was making the right choice to attain a drama degree, this article helps ease my anxieties. I really think that what he says in the article is true. All theater majors, (actors, DPs, directors) have to develop so many different types of skills to create and produce a show. I think if theater majors end up not working in the field, they are highly prepared to learn anything.
I loved reading this article and I think that this article is 110% true. I have a strong feeling that showing my family this article would make them trust my decision to attend 'Theatre School' even further. Despite the fact that my family does indeed trust my decision and is happy that I followed my passion, I would love to show them this and see how they react. This article is definitely one that I will show my brother (who went to school as a business major) and ask him if he feels this makes sense to him. Theatre school teaches you so much more then simply how to work in a theater. It teaches you how to communicate, collaborate, be a leader, give direction, take direction, etc. Not to mention, any one of the disciplines in the School of Drama gives you a fair deal of training in Professionalism.
I love this article. I want to send this article to every person who scoffed at me for not studying something "real" in college. Theater is real. Theater is very real, and the perfect preparation for any other profession (aside from maybe medicine). I was actually having a conversation with a friend about this the other day and she said something that struck me. She said, "Maybe I should minor in something real... my parents wanted me to minor in business." But after reading this article I remember that majoring in theater IS minoring in business. It's also minoring in marketing. And history. And English (and Avenue Q taught us that English is an absolutely useless degree), and engineering, and physics, and math, and pretty much anything. Theater is used as a metaphor for most things for a reason. All the world's a stage, right? If that's true then I guess us drama majors are on top of the world. There are so many skills that we learn in drama school that no one else knows. particularly how to meet deadlines, how to be a team player, and how to network. People can tell me that the arts are dying all they want, but we are learning so much more than that and I wouldn't change a single thing about my education.
All except one of these are things I've heard before, all of which I agree with. The one I've never really heard before, and that I found the most interesting, is that Drama (and Music, but it's all CFA, so same difference) really is the only department that is expected and in fact required to sell something to an audience. In the "real world" all jobs are parts of business, all of which are trying to sell or create something that will be used or bought or sold for some purpose, and having a sense of what audience like and don't like is invaluable.
Another point to make is that all of these values aren't innate to every theatre student, and it is absolutely possible to get through school with a theatre degree and not learn these skills. These are all things that are possible to learn by doing theatre, but they also have to be incorporated into each student's learning. Students have to take a hand in their education and realize that all of these skills are available for them to learn and they should embrace it.
I've already identified most of these things through Susan Tsu and Kevin anecdotes, as a way to explain to my mother why I'm a theatre major. And it seems to work. I always talk about the critical thinking skills that come with design. Design is essentially, when working backwards, breaking apart a thing into it's most basic shapes, colors and textures, and placing each one with it's function within the design. Also stage managers are much better at managing then most business majors, for the sole reason that a stage manager is so much more immersed in a process then a business executive. A combination of all these things makes theatre not just a fun but also very practical and versatile major, especially if theatre got to be a bit much.
To reiterate what everyone has been writing -- this is a great article! I've had so many experiences with people questioning why I do what I do -- with a studio art undergrad degree and now with working on my MFA, there are those who question how successful I'll be. Well, I think I've learned immensely in my studies. Not only technical skills, but skills in human interaction, in organizing work flow and managing groups, and in looking at things critically. We work really hard in our field and I think it creates an amazing work ethic. I feel confident that I will be successful in what I do -- I feel prepared to solve problems and handle challenges. There is such a variety of things you learn to handle in the arts that doesn't come up in other fields and I think our skill set is much more diverse than a lot of people might think. It's good to hear this celebrated in this article. I think that people who work in the arts are some of the most versatile people I've ever met.
I always thought that theatre transfers well to any job because we don’t create reality we emulate it. We as a group break down reality and then copy it, and in order to do so we have understand the little details of reality. We understand the facade of the everyday. We are not just able to create that for a play, we are also able to do outside the theatre. That is what enables us to be more useful in a work place. That is why I agree with this article. The article breaks down and classifies our skill sets more, but the reasoning behind it is the same.
Articles like these should get more recognition. I've told people that I'm studying theatre and I almost always get the "OH...." Yet, every day, business majors and the like are applauded for their achievements, even if their heart isn't in the work. But we as theater artists are so much more than singing and dancing and making plywood look like different plywood. Reading this list made me appreciate my education at CMU while also showing me how the things I take for granted are going to help me in any situation.
On the first day of PTM, Kevin said something along the lines of, "You can teach a theater person to be an engineer, but you can't teach an engineer to be a theater person." He went on with the lesson, but I kept thinking about it. We spend our entire theatrical lives adapting to new situations, new shows, new casts. And yet, that's a skill that not many people have. Weird.
This article couldn't be more true! Working in the theatre injects a huge amount of knowledge into anyone involved with working on the show. Even though as theatre artists we train for a specific set of skills related to our area of focus, (i.e acting, light design, stage management etc. etc.) we still pickup other skills necessary to do our job that translate into almost any field as the article pointed out. What is also interesting about working in the theatre is each production is essentially a mini research project. Whether or not you work as a performer or designer or manager, you will need to know something about the production concept in order to bring your contribution to the show. That being said theatre artists end up knowing general information on very wide and diverse topics. This makes us well informed of our world around us, something most people do not get out of their line of work. Theatre is essentially preparing people to do just about anything in a world with many choices.
They've found me out.
I've had this mindset for a long time, particularly at CMU. Though I love theater, I'm not sure if I'm always going to want to work in it. That doesn't make me any less dedicated to my work here or anywhere in the business, but it has made my family question my choice to get a BFA as opposed to a business degree or something of that ilk. Drama is one of the only programs that supervises an entire process from start to bitter end, and that kind of overall awareness has made me a valuable asset to the other companies I've worked for last year.
This article helps put words to what I already knew. Being part of the BXA program (Information Systems & PTM), I am always getting asked what am I planning to do with my degree. Currently, I still don't know where I will be in 3-4 years. However, I do know both halves of my degree will give me many of the skills mentioned in this article. What's more, since PTM & IS cover many of the same things, I get to learn things from a practical side and a business perspective too. Now I just need to send this to my parents :P (I they are still hoping I will switch to IS and Business instead of BXA).
I really like how this article shows that degrees are far more than just what they say on them, and it's not just for drama. The tools that you get from a certain degree program are universal, and can be applied to many different industries. I really like the focus on theatre in the article though, because we are more than just people who can sing or build sets or turn on lights, which is what a lot of people who don't know what we do think that we do. We may be trained in those fields, but because of what we do we learn so much more than just that. So much of what we do involves problem solving, teamwork, and deadlines/budgets. Yes, the way we learned it is in reference to theatre, but it's applications can be in any industry.
This is not the first time I've heard this information or read an article about this. In my undergrad, my counselors had info packets about different majors and the skill set one acquires through the education of their field, and how it can be applicable to general professional skills. A lot of the data that they had said that people from a theatre background weren't only successful from the skills they had, but their exposure to having passion for a profession. And it's that passion that we have for our craft, or that mindset rather, that helps us really become invested in whatever career path we choose to follow.
I love this because my mother has been getting me to switch majors since I started applying to colleges.I really like that this author points out the strength of problem solving and critical thinking skills because that is so much of what theater design and production people do. I was talking with Daniel about this and we were saying how Carnegie Mellon School of Drama trains us to "get shit done, done well, and done efficiently". These skills are transferable to any profession. Also it is important to note that in this one major, we are trained for so many positions and to work with so many different people.
I love that this article acknowledges the wealth of skills that come with having a degree in theater. The fact that doing theater creates more well rounded and capable workers is something that is too often overlooked. Most people believe that working toward a degree that gives you one specific skill set is the way to a finical security, however they underestimate the need for new types of thinkers in most fields. Companies want the type of innovation that not only comes from having the abilities to thrive in their industry, but also a completely new perspective on it.
This article is very well written and very very true. It makes no delusions that a career in the arts is a stable one or a profitable one. However, it makes it clear that the training and skills one acquires in theatre transcend the boundaries of the arts and allow us to make our ways elsewhere as well. I am excited to have this article on hand for the next time anyone asks me why I am working on a theatre degree.
THIS IS WHAT I TELL PEOPLE ALL THE TIME!!! theater degrees will get you everywhere!!!!! Like lets be honest we were learning how to survive the apocalypses here. The things we learn about sound,light,shop,designing and over all life skills on top of management skills will forever not only be used through out our entire life but can also be used in every profession we take on after theater school. I cant speak for actors but i definitely feel qualified enough for most things.
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